Module talk:Location map/data/CanadaTerrain

Created
06-Nov-2007: The file "Template:Location map CanadaTerrain" was created November 6, 2007, to allow placing markers over similar terrain maps of Canada. It was created for using the new mapping procedure Template:Location_map_polarx, which can position markers/labels at coordinates skewed to match locations on polar-projection maps. An example using that new template is included to show markers placed on the terrain map of Canada. -Wikid77 20:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Split as minimal
08-Nov-2007: I have split the template description text into a doc file, leaving only a minimal list of settings in the original template. After months of fighting horrific template-resource limits, with templates going wiki-spazoid, I finally discovered the horrific problems of limited templates were were formerly caused by the large "nonincluded" text sections of the map-definition templates. Chock up another nightmare to the wikispastic "&lt;noinclude>" tag, another peculiar child of the wiki language: well, it seems to INCLUDE the "non-included" text well enough to overwhelm files that include the template multiple times. Okay, it didn't really "include" the non-included text, it just semi-included it enough to cause wikigagging on map templates.

Unlike a sane programming language (which might report, "Language stack full, ignoring nested expressions..."), the MediaWiki language, well, sort of wikipukes more vomitous output of the form "[[image:#if:|180px|180|#if:" (or "Unrecognized ["), with the wikivomit output hiding the true meaning that the "language-processing limits have been reached". After months of trimming templates to run within the limited resources, it's great to discover that "nonincluded" text was clogging the MediaWiki language processing & was causing the exceeded resource limits. Well, imagine that: hundreds of wasted hours, and another reason that people abandon efforts to improve Wikipedia. -[[User:Wikid77|Wikid77]] 07:54, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
 * 10-Feb-2008: In January 2008, new MediaWiki software was installed which vastly raised the limits (see below). -Wikid77 (talk) 18:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

New parser verified for 112x more template code
10-Feb-2008: A WP admin informed me days ago that a new MediaWiki parser was installed in January 2008, which will skip noinclude-sections formerly limited by template-processing limits. I have tested that new parser now, using the CanadaTerrain template as a known limiting case, which formerly choked when holding over 1.5kb of total text.

In January 2008, the MediaWiki software was quietly revolutionized to use a new parser that bypassed unused template coding (such as in conditional false branches) and skipped template-expansion in the bypassed sections. The new parser could process nested templates over 112 times larger than in November 2007.

Today (Feb.10, 2008), I ran temporary tests with "Template:Location map CanadaTerrain" by repeating the Examples section (of doc subpage) 14 times as 42 examples using "Location_map_polarx" (28 times) and "Location_map_many_polarx" (14 times). Those 42 examples, combined, contained 10,108 uses of "Location_map_CanadaTerrain" as 10,108= 14 * (206+206+310) calls/transclusions. Meanwhile the map-spec template Location_map_CanadaTerrain was stuffed as 4620 bytes with block-text (beyond the former limit of 1.5kb) to verify that noinclude-sections are skipped by the new parser. The gargantuan total result was over 46 MEGABYTES (yes) of nested templates, and all 42 examples displayed their Canada maps with no problems: all 46MB+ of template code was processed with no messages reported. Formerly, only 2 mappings of Location_map_polarx were allowed per article; the combined processing of 42 complex mappings with block-text in map-specs was over 112 times more capacity. The calculation yielding "112" uses the ratio of the block-text size (4620), to the original size (860) of map-spec CanadaTerrain, in processing 42 map templates rather than the prior limit of 2 maps: 42/2 * (4620/860) = 112.81. The test of 42 maps was run twice, several hours apart, to double check the 42 generated maps. -Wikid77 (talk) 22:47, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Other issues

 * [ Discuss other, unnamed issues here. -Wikid77 ]